IFG: Anonymous Funding and Its Role in Fraud

On 21st May 2015 the International Fraud Group (IFG) hosted the Future View of International Fraud, a panel discussion on anonymous funding and its role in fraud.

Transcript

IFG – International Fraud Group

Anonymous Funding and Its Role in Fraud May 2015

Gary Miller CFE
Partner, Mishcon de Reya

Today’s event is all about bringing the members of the International Fraud Group together. The IFG is an international network of fraud specialists. We are focussing on anonymous funding and the role that it plays in business and the importance of that.

The cyber world creates more visibility as we all leave electronic traces behind us. It sort of tips the other way as well and the sheer ubiquity of communication also means that things can be made anonymous more easily. So it is a very interesting topic and one we should look at.

Adrian Leppard QPM
Commissioner, City of London Police

We are dealing with a growing problem of incoming crime, linked to that is a growing money laundering problem and we start to see how with money laundering regulations happening quite effectively in many countries that criminals are looking to other forms of moving that money and anonymous funding is part of that.

Richard Kovalevsky QC
2 Bedford Row Chambers

The point about hawala banking is its transformation. If you can insert yourself as a criminal enterprise into the hawala chain you can launder your funds and move them and make them come somewhere else. The essence of hawala is that the original funds stay in the place in which they are generated.

Daniel H Gallancy
CEO, SolidX Partners Inc

Right now the role of digital currency is actually fairly small in the global financial markets. The entirety of the monetary base of bitcoin and other digital currencies is less than five billion US dollars. That said, the future importance of bitcoin and other commercial currencies is increasing as their utilisation increases and as the used cases increases.

Adrian Leppard QPM
Commissioner, City of London Police

We do need to regulate this space but we need to do it cautiously and in a way that doesn’t impede growth of new business.

Hugo Plowman
Partner, Mishcon de Reya

We heard tonight you know about the individual’s right to privacy versus the States need to investigate, to get access to data, to be able to tap up banks for the information they have on fraud and for me you know, that’s my practice area and I found it a fascinating discussion.

Joshua Sohn
Mishcon de Reya New York

Certainly the emergence of bitcoin and how it is going to play into our practices in the future was very interesting.

Gary Miller CFE
Partner, Mishcon de Reya

The primary fear or the primary concern is definitely in the area of money laundering because if you don’t know where your money is coming from it creates a huge risk for the organisation in terms of who is it dealing with.

Gary Miller CFE
Partner, Mishcon de Reya

Where does the money come from lies at the very heart of trying to establish the legitimacy and the transparency of business transactions.